


Cardboard Castles

by spacemancharisma



Category: Pacific Rim (Movies)
Genre: (author is autistic), Autistic Newton Geizler, First Kiss, Getting Together, M/M, Not Pacific Rim: Uprising (2018) Compliant, Post PR, bro this is so soft, but it is a fact about this fic and so there you have it, it's so tender dude, the fact that he's autistic is not like relevant to the plot or anything
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-01
Updated: 2020-01-01
Packaged: 2021-02-27 03:19:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,953
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22070170
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spacemancharisma/pseuds/spacemancharisma
Summary: As it was, it was just past midnight, two days before the Shatterdome was to be completely shut down, and Newt and Hermann were still boxing up the lab, passing the time with rather unenthusiastic discussion of how they might spend the rest of their lives (both parties involved) and stacking empty boxes into architecturally unsound towers for shooting spitballs out of (only Newt).
Relationships: Newton Geiszler/Hermann Gottlieb
Comments: 22
Kudos: 102





	Cardboard Castles

**Author's Note:**

> biggest heart eyes to Mac for beta reading as always lmao
> 
> also this is my first published work so hhh I hope y'all like it

It had been almost a month since the war ended, and it was finally time for the denizens of the Hong Kong Shatterdome to clear out and seek out the rest of their lives. As nearly a decade of tireless work and research and endless loss wound to a close, some were having an easier time adjusting to the idea of civilian life than others.

Among those who almost seemed to be holding out for another war to start were the last two remaining members of the K-Science division, who had waited practically until the last possible minute to begin packing their artifacts for moving. As it was, it was just past midnight, two days before the Shatterdome was to be completely shut down, and Newt and Hermann were still boxing up the lab, passing the time with rather unenthusiastic discussion of how they might spend the rest of their lives (both parties involved) and stacking empty boxes into architecturally unsound towers for shooting spitballs out of (only Newt).

“America is none too kind on those of us who do not or cannot drive, and frankly I am not looking forward to sorting that particular issue out,” Hermann mused more to himself than to Newt as he began to tape up the top of one of the numerous cardboard boxes littering his workspace. They had all been meticulously labeled with their specific contents, as opposed to the boxes on Newt’s side of the lab, which were each marked with a hastily rendered doodle of a lizard in permanent marker, and occasionally some other nearly incomprehensible drawing that was apparently meant to indicate what they held.

Newt’s voice floated out from within the cardboard fort he was building for himself. “I could drive you places.”

Hermann looked up to fix him with an unamused face, and the expression promptly doubled in its degree of unamusement when he saw the way his lab partner’s hair and glasses were peering out of one “window” in his fort, the rest of his body completely encased by boxes. “Newton, you are not my chauffeur.”

“No, seriously, I could drive you places!”

Hermann rolled his eyes and resumed his work with the tape gun as Newt proceeded to extricate himself from his structure. “What are you going to do, follow me around like an abandoned kitten?” Hermann punctuated the sentence with a loud, decisive ripping sound from the tape. “The rest of the world isn’t the Shatterdome- we don’t live together, Newton.”

“We could!” It sounded like the words had burst out of Newt’s mouth unbidden, but when Hermann turned to look at him, his fists were clenched by his sides and he looked almost painfully earnest. “We could.”

Newt’s hands started to flutter as he began to babble, and his eyes were fixed firmly on the left corner of Hermann’s mouth, his favorite place to avoid eye contact. “I mean, come on man, I don’t know how you’ve kept it together this long, cause I’m fucking dying, dude, it’s been _weeks_ and I just-” he drew in a deep, shaky breath.

“I am in love with you,” as the words left Newt’s mouth, Hermann felt his chest hitch. He had never heard Newton’s voice sound so sure and so steady. It was enough to break his heart.

Then Newt’s hands began to flit around again and his voice picked up speed. “And unless I seriously misunderstood the drift -- which I don’t think is even _possible_ , by the way -- you are in love with me too. And in two days we’re leaving, and I didn’t say anything for the past eight years, and that’s eight years too many because I was in love with you when I was twenty-three and I’m still in love with you now, and, I mean, the worst thing that can happen is that nothing changes, but _god_ I want something to change, because you’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me and you’re about to walk out of my life - probably forever - and I don’t know if I’d ever recover from that, and I felt you in the drift, _I felt you_ , and I mean something to you too, I know I do, and this doesn’t have to end here, it doesn’t have to, because I’m going to keep loving you for the rest of my life, whether I never hear from you again or whether I spend every waking minute with you, and, and I guess all I really wanted to say was that I could drive you places,” a shattered gasp in and out was the first time he had breathed since started talking. “If you’d let me.”

Newton stood stock still and shaking at all his edges. One of his hands was rapidly slapping against his thigh. His eyes were wide and round behind the crack in his glasses and his face was pitifully open; Hermann almost felt like a voyeur for even seeing him like this, completely stripped of all pretenses and bravado.

After a moment, the air seemed to break between them and Newt’s hands started to scrabble and pull at the hem of his t-shirt. He couldn’t bear the silence. He couldn’t bear unspoken rejection.

“Except, I mean, my license is probably expired at this point so, like, that could be an issue, and my car has a ton of junk just lying around in it and you’d hate that, and I mean who knows, I’ve barely driven it since we started Dome-hopping so it probably needs a ton of repairs and shit, I don’t know anything about cars, and-”

An excuse, an out -- Hermann knew one when he heard it. Newton was giving him the chance to say no without any dramatics. Newton was giving him the chance to walk out of the Shatterdome and out of his life permanently. Newton, and his shivering silhouette and his flushed cheeks and his big eyes and the leather bracelets wrapped around his tattoos, wouldn’t even complain. He wouldn’t say a word. Hell, he’d probably be packed and vanished into the mist over the Pacific before Hermann even woke up the next morning. He couldn’t bear unspoken rejection.

Abruptly, and with more clarity than he had ever known himself to possess, Hermann realized that he didn’t want Newton to go. In fact, he was almost sick at the thought. His head spun as he imagined the rest of his life without the obnoxious, shrill little man who was still neurotically droning on a few feet in front of him. It was painful in the back of his skull where he felt the lingering drift-bond constantly pulling him towards Newton; _closer, closer,_ it never stopped urging. But more than that, it was painful somewhere deep in his chest, and he ached sharply at the idea of sending Newton away.

Then, almost before Hermann had the chance to realize that he was in motion, a few feet became one, became none, and his hand was gentle around Newton’s jaw, and he was close enough to feel the subtle vibrations of the faint whimpering noise Newton made as his train of thought screeched to a halt when Hermann leaned in to say, very softly, “Can you perhaps stop talking for even one single moment, Herr Doktor?”

Newt’s mouth was parted open, just barely, as he stared up at Hermann, gaze flittering between his eyes, unsure of which to focus on. His breath was coming fast and shallow, high in his chest, and Hermann found that he couldn’t help staring at the way the light danced between Newton’s eyelashes and around the crimson ring on his iris.

Between the faint freckles across his nose and the way that Newton was trembling and leaning into his hand, Hermann found that he really had no choice but to kiss him.

Newt made a sound somewhere between a sob and a cheer as their lips met and threw his arms around Hermann, one pulling him close around his waist, one gripping tight and desperate at the short-cropped hairs at the base of his head. The drift seemed to hum warmly between them and they both found themselves falling back into the feeling, swallowed by an intimacy too deep and too personal for words.

“I love you, I love you, I love you,” Newt gasped over and over again against Hermann’s mouth. It was as though he couldn’t possibly say it enough, as though he felt he had to make Hermann believe it.

Hermann pulled back just far enough to look Newton in the eye, and held his face steady. Newt’s mouth quirked into a disbelieving smile over and over again, like he couldn’t help it, and the “God, I love you too” spilled out over Hermann’s lips like he couldn’t help it.

Newt crowed with joy and hugged Hermann tight enough to lift him off the ground.

“Can I come with you then? Can I come with you? Oh God, I know that’s a crazy thing to ask, I know that’s the definition of moving too fast, but two days, Hermann, we’ve got two days, and God, I just can’t leave here without you, I don’t know what I’ll do, you’ve been the only place I care about being for the past eight years, and I really can’t imagine my life without you, and I promise I’m not being romantic or poetic or anything, I honestly can’t imagine what I would do without you, and I just,” a deep breath, and Newt’s hands fidgeting with the sleeves of Hermann’s sweater. “Hermann, please, dude, I just bared my whole fucking soul to you, I just gave you _eight years_ worth of love confessions, can I _please_ come with you when you leave?”

Hermann couldn’t help a grin even as he argued on reflex. “Do you genuinely believe that we could live together without killing one another in cold blood?”

“We already have been, come on!”

Hermann opened his mouth to debate the finer details of that claim, but Newt was much too quick with, “And I’ve loved you for every second of it, even the ones where I maybe did consider killing you in cold blood, just a little bit.” Newt gave a shining, crooked smile as punctuation, and Hermann felt what remained of his teasing resolve slide through his fingers like so much water. “And I wasn’t even on my best behavior then.”

God, he loved this ridiculous man.

“Well,” Hermann drawled in fake deliberation, “If you’re quite certain that you’ve nowhere better to be, I certainly wouldn’t mind some assistance with all these boxes, and I suppose if you’re willing to come that far with me, it would be terrible of me to turn you out, all on your own.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Newt’s eyebrows were drawn up high and he nodded his head fast enough to shake his glasses down his nose. “Yeah, I can help you pack when you leave here, and I can help you move into wherever you’re moving into, and I can drive you there when the plane lands, and I can drive you to work or anywhere else you need to be, and I can cook for you, I’m an okay cook, and I can-”

“Newton,” Hermann kissed him gently, half because he needed him to stop talking, and half because he wanted to see the way his eyelashes fluttered when the kiss was over. “I want you with me. I want you. Not so that you can do things for me, not because I’ve grown used to you after all this time, not because you are ‘convenient’ or something like that, but because I want you, specifically, to be in my life. Because I love you, specifically, Dr. Newton Geizler.”

An unnamable emotion painted a stripe across Newt’s face as his whole body released its tension and he smiled softly. “Yeah, okay.”

The smile grew as Newt laced his fingers through Hermann’s, and he began to shift his weight from foot to foot, impossibly pleased. “Hey, hey Herms, guess what.”  
Hermann raised an eyebrow at him.

“I love you too.”

Hermann couldn’t help rolling his eyes, but it was terribly fond.

“Oh, hey!” Newt blurted out, splintering the moment. He tugged on Hermann’s hand, turning away. “Come see!”

Hermann allowed himself to be led across the lab and through the open flap of cardboard that served as a door into Newt’s fort, and ducked inside the cavern of boxes. Once inside, he realized that, illuminated by small windows on all four walls, every single box had a question written on one of its panels, each followed by a “Check Yes or No” in Newton’s hurried scrawl.

As Hermann took in pillars and pillars of cardboard confessions, he saw that the questions ranged from “Newt loves you- do you love him?” to “Do you want to move in with Newt?” to “If you did live with Newt, would you let him get a lizard?” (That last one was immediately followed by another box reading “Two lizards?”) Hermann’s eyes followed the scribbling of the permanent marker to “Do you think Newt is cute? (he thinks you’re cute)” and “Do you think Newt is hot? (he thinks you’re hot)” and “If you do agree to move in with Newt, are you gonna be mad that one of the moving boxes says Newt thinks you’re hot on it?”

In the furthest corner, in much smaller writing, almost as if Newton hadn’t really wanted Hermann to see it, was “Would you marry Newt? (Not necessarily like right now or anything crazy and honestly we can forget I ever said anything about it if it makes you uncomfortable and I know I’m probably moving way too fast but I just wanted to ask because holy shit I love you dude yeah this is definitely way too fast I’m sorry)”.

Newt slid his hand out of Hermann’s to scrub at the back of his neck. “Yeah, uh, I mean, my original plan was to just bring you in here and be all cute and stuff but then I guess I got kinda freaked out and impatient because I really just, I really don’t want to leave here without you, man.”

Hermann found that his gaze had caught on one box that had just the phrase “I love you” scrawled over and over and over again, as if Newton had been practicing, and the one next to it, which was adorned with a hasty doodle of the two of them holding hands.

“Newton, I-”

“And, and,” Newt stammered. “I mean obviously you don’t have to, like, actually respond to all of the questions.” He giggled nervously, “That would be, like, an insane thing to ask you to do, and I mean, maybe it was an insane thing for _me_ to do in the first place, but I had to do _something_ , and I wanted it to be special, and I was kinda working on short notice, you know, so I worked with what I had, and-”

“Newton!”

Newt’s frantic chattering broke off with a “Mhm?” as his eyes returned to meet Hermann’s.

“Newton,” Hermann smiled at him, and it was something tender. “This is absolutely absurd.”

Newt managed to get out a single “W-” before Hermann shut him up with a swipe of chalk striking through the “yes” box that followed “Newt loves you- do you love him?”

“You should be using these boxes to pack your things. We leave in two days, you know, and I’m not going to stay up all night to help you if you’re still running behind tomorrow. I’ve already got to make far more calls than I’d like to in the morning to make sure you’re not going to get mixed up like mishandled luggage because we both know you aren’t capable of successfully switching your own flights. And last I checked, you haven’t even _thought_ about packing up your quarters, and if you don’t get all of your nonsense put away by Friday, I assure you I will be the first in line to toss out all of your ridiculous figurines.”

At some point, Newt had begun to slowly trace over the chalk mark Hermann had left, and when Hermann was finished talking, he blew the dust off of his finger and gave a winning smile.

“Well!” Newt clapped his hands together decisively and slid out of the fort, holding the door open for Hermann in his wake. “In that case, I guess I ought to head back to my room and start getting things together.”

Newt smacked a kiss on Hermann’s cheek and strode out of the lab with a grand total of absolutely nothing that could possibly be useful for packing up his quarters. After one beat of confused quiet, Newt stuck his head back around the heavy door and cleared his throat.

In a voice that was grossly exaggerated and accompanied by several distinctly unsubtle glances into the corridor, he announced, “You certainly shouldn’t follow me there or anything like that, because that would potentially be very distracting from my truly valiant efforts to finish packing.” And then he slipped back into the hallway, and Hermann could hear the heels of his boots clacking their way to his room very, very slowly.

After a few minutes, Hermann found his way to the sliver of light creeping out of the crack where Newton had left his door open. And if Newt discovered a few more chalk-checked “yes” boxes in the process of moving into their new apartment, well, he wouldn’t say anything. (He would, however, cut them out and affix them to the fridge with tiny kaiju-shaped magnets.)


End file.
